Writing

R.A.F.T.S. Writing Assignment for the Week:

What is R.A.F.T.S. Writing?

R.A.F.T.S. is a writing strategy that helps students understand their role as a writer, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the topic they'll be writing about. By using this strategy, teachers encourage students to write creatively, to consider a topic from a different perspective, and to gain practice writing for different audiences. Why use R.A.F.T.S.?

It includes writing from different viewpoints.

It helps students learn important writing skills such as audience, main idea, and organization.

It teaches students to think creatively about writing by responding to the following prompts: Role of the Writer: Who or what are you as the writer? A pilgrim? A soldier? The President?Audience: To whom are you writing? A friend? Your teacher? Readers of a newspaper? Format: In what format are you writing? A letter? A poem? A speech? Topic: What are you writing about? Why? What's the subject or the point?

Strong verb: Include a strong verb in your writing piece.

It can be used across various content areas

Formal Writing Assignment for the Week:

Personal Narrative

What are the Six + 1 Traits of Writing?

6 + 1 Traits of Writing 6 + 1 Traits is a unique way of instructing writing that was developed by Ruth Culham. Many times writing is more heavily evaluated and taught for mechanical correctness. However, 6 +1 Traits sees mechanics/conventions as one facet of writing. This method focuses on many other areas of writing and not just conventions. So often students who lacked substance in their writing, but had great mechanics received better scores than student's writing that lacked in mechanics, but had great substance. 6 + 1 Traits levels the playing field to create well rounded writers.

Conventions: mechanics, spelling, grammar usage

Word Choice: grade-level vocabulary the author utilizes

Sentence Fluency: the flow of the writing, varied sentence patterns and lengths